


genius loci

by mythpoetry



Series: Samifer Love Week 2016 [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, blind date au, every time i can give the devil tattoos i will, i like this universe so much i might actually come back to it, likewise anytime i can spend time imagining a hypothetical club for very ethereal creatures: i will, the worldbuilding really really got away from me, well kind of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-09-22
Packaged: 2018-07-28 14:47:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7645156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mythpoetry/pseuds/mythpoetry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam knows Dean means well with this whole blind date thing, but he also kind of wants to kill him for it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. underhill

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Samifer Love Week 2016  
> July 31st prompt: Blind Date AU

“You need to get laid,” Dean said, throwing back his third mug of beer. “I’m serious. I think it’s starting to affect your job.”

“Today I killed three djinn while you complained about missing your _special friend_ ,” Sam said.

“Hey, shut up. Companionship is treating me well.” Dean smiled and gave an absolutely ridiculous sigh. Sam loved his brother but Dean’s current relationship was proving to be nearly intolerable. Sam was happy for him and all, but come on. A year ago, if Dean had met himself, he would have kicked his own ass.

“Whatever,” Sam said. “Really, I’m okay.” He wasn’t one for casual hookups and hunting was complicated enough without adding the potentiality of a loved one’s death into the mix. He barely managed with his brother, and not everyone was lucky enough to have a celestial being who could heal wounds in a haze of light at their beck and call.

“Listen, there’s this place,” Dean said, trying and failing to be casual. “Seems like it’d be right up your alley.”

“Why do I feel like I’m walking into a trap?”

“Because your brother has arranged a meeting with a potential suitor,” Castiel said.

“Jesus, Cas!” Dean said, spilling his beer. “You think you could maybe warn a guy before you teleport into his personal space?”

“It’s unwise to profane the name of the Lord, Dean.”

Sam ground his teeth to keep from grabbing Dean’s beer mug and beating himself to death with it. “You set me up?”

“Literally,” Dean said, still glaring at Castiel. “Look, I think it’ll be good for you. One date isn’t gonna make your eyes bleed.”

“Depending on the manner of creature, it -”

“Cas, you’re great for my brother and all, but please shut the fuck up,” Sam said. Then sighed, because really? “Sure. One date. Do I get a name?”

“Nope, location.” Dean smiled. “More fun that way, yeah? Anyway, it’s right off South Grand. This Thursday. Knock twice and tell them you’re a friend of Seventh Heaven.” He paused. “The clientele is a little odd, but it’s a safe place. Maybe think about wearing a suit.”

“There’s no such thing as a safe place in our line of work,” Sam said. But he took down the information. And he brought a suit.

 

*

The place turned out to be a stairwell with tiny Hebrew writing in gold over the doorway, at least from the outside. Sam did as his brother had told him, feeling phenomenally stupid all the while. The door opened and he didn’t see anyone, so he just followed the vaguely ominous thread of music winding through the hall.

The first thing Sam did was marvel at the architecture. The hall emptied into an antechamber composed entirely of what looked like shifting glass or crystal; the effect was somehow glimmering without being too bright to be distracting, like being inside a dimly lit diamond. For a few minutes he just stared at the walls and high sloping ceilings, looking for support beams, looking for a mechanism that would make all the different parts move. He saw nothing.

The second thing Sam did was reach for his gun.

He’d been so busy looking at the construction of his surroundings that he’d totally failed to notice its inhabitants. One woman looked like she’d been dipped in gold; another had a shifting tail of hair like the trail of a comet. While Sam was deciding who to shoot first a man with the paws of a lion bumped into him. Sam was too stunned to say anything when the man profusely apologized.

“I’ll assume you’re Sam.”

Voice right behind his neck. Two moves, maximum, and then Sam could drop him. He only deliberated for a split second when the man who’d spoken said, “I think shooting those with no intent to harm you is probably considered rude.”

Sam turned, slowly, assessing. The man was in a crisp white suit, late thirties or early forties, sandy blond hair, blue eyes like neon. At his throat there was a tattoo in gold ink that said _non serviam._ Beneath the mundane of him, there was something _other,_ something bright that Sam couldn’t look at for too long. Strangely shifting, like a nebula was writhing underneath his skin. “Nice to meet you,” the man said, his voice rich and a little hoarse.

“You’re - Dean set me up with _you_?” Sam asked.

“Indeed. Well, Dean - how can I put this? _Mediated_ ,” White Suit said. “Shall we sit?”

“Uh, sure,” Sam said. This whole thing was so surreal. Sam let himself be gently guided towards a set of tables he hadn’t noticed coming in, between the whole holy-shit-this-place-is-made-of-diamonds and holy-shit-this-place-is-full-of-monsters moments. They sat. “Do I get a name?” Sam asked.

“First tell me about yourself,” White Suit said.

“Uh.” Sam paused. “I’m sure you already know too much about me. My brother’s not exactly subtle.”

“Nor mine. Castiel is only recently learning how to grasp the concept of nuance.”

“Wait,” Sam said, “Castiel is your _brother_?” He took in the strange blurring of the man’s presence, like it warped the air around it. “So - you’re -”

“An angel, yes,” the man said, then smiled. His teeth were very white and very sharp. “My name is Lucifer.”

Sam stared. “I’m sorry. Did you just say your name was _Lucifer_?” He reached for his gun, under his jacket, and Lucifer’s hand wound around him, gripped him tight.

Sam knew he had no cards to play. He’d been a little down lately, sure, but he wasn’t suicidal. “Let me guess. I’d shoot you, and nothing would happen.”

“Not even a migraine,” Lucifer said. He slowly loosened his hold on Sam’s arm. “We might as well finish our date.”

Sam loved his brother truly, fervently, with the adoration that all younger siblings held, but if he managed to make it out of this night alive, he thought he might just snap Dean’s neck. “Sure thing,” Sam said, and Lucifer smiled.


	2. carousel

It was half past three before Sam stumbled out of the stairwell, the door closing behind him and disappearing into the wall. His throat burned. After his fifth drink things had started to blur; Lucifer had ordered him something dark and rich and red in a gold half circle of a glass and he’d gulped it down, greedily. After that there was only darkness pricked with bright stars of hurt, something like pain or longing. A partial memory surfaced, in jerky cut stages: his mouth meeting white linen, the gold of Lucifer’s tattoo bleeding onto him.  _ Take this and eat it _ , Lucifer had whispered, his breath in Sam’s ear, and everyone around had laughed, and Sam had -

Nevermind. He didn’t need to think about how stupid he may have looked to a ballroom full of monsters. He needed to figure out where the hell he was and get back to their motel and maybe punch Dean in the face. When he’d come through the doorway he’d been on South Grand, downtown. Now nothing around him looked familiar, hedgerows of greenblack bushes and soft streetlights. Somewhere an owl hooted. Sam had read once that Los Angeles was the birdiest city in the country. With the amount of times some pigeon had crapped on Dean’s car, he believed it. 

He shook his head. He was getting lost again, letting his thoughts spiral. Instead he should be paying attention to his surroundings. White house with terracotta roof, white house with shingled roof, white house with weird yellow roof. Sam kept walking, looking everywhere for a stoplight, or hell, a street sign. After awhile all the big houses started to look the same, sprawling and malevolent. How much acreage could rich people cover? He walked for what felt like hours, never seeming to make any progress. The overbearing dark of the sky didn’t change. The lamps that lit the sidewalk flickered at precisely five minute intervals. He counted.

Something was off. He didn’t hear any cars. He didn’t hear any foot traffic. Other than the occasional bird, he hadn’t heard anything at all. Sam didn’t have a watch but his internal clock was intact as ever, from years of counting the days alone in a motel room, counting seconds left alone by his brother and father for a job he wasn’t sure they’d come back from alive. He was good at keeping time. He had to have been walking for at least three hours, and everything stayed the same, no matter where he put his feet down. “What the fuck,” he said. The dark green hedges rattled, whispered; something snaked underneath them and cast shadows in the black pool of the street. 

His right leg was cramping. He’d been kneeling, earlier. The bushes rattled again, like they’d caught his train of thought and were amused. “What the fuck!” Sam shouted, exhausted and pissed beyond all reason.

Something growled behind him. Deep and abiding and terrible. Inhuman.

Immediately Sam reached for his gun and felt like an idiot. He’d thrown it away - or, more correctly, drunkenly handed it over to Lucifer sometime after that drink that’d tasted halfway between fruit and blood. He had no defense against any possible threat, all because he’d wanted to get  _ laid. _ Stupid.

He turned around, slowly, slowly, trying to not to startle whatever was behind him. In the dim lamplight he saw the creature’s tail flick, lazily, before falling again to its side. Sam stared. Whatever it was had a long, lanky body, like a kid’s approximation of a lion, tawny, but covered in filth. Its human face was strangely squashed and very ugly. The fur on its tail stood straight up and two ragged stumps on its back were bleeding. “Hellcniht,” it hissed at him. Sam backed away as slowly as he could. Its movements were jerky, puppet-like.

“Hellcniht,” it spat again, and lunged. 

Sam let the tension drain out of his body and threw himself to the ground, rolling, the monster missing him by inches. There was a sound like knives whirring together; a coalition of voices; a storm in a teacup. The air around Sam screamed and then Lucifer was beside him, smiling beatifically, one hand holding back the face of the snarling creature, the other in his jacket pocket. “Don’t you despise sphinxes?” he said, conversationally. “Always so nosy. Interfering, one might say.”

“What the fuck,” Sam said, for the billionth time that night.

“Stupid boy,” Lucifer said fondly to Sam, then reached through the sphinx’s back and tore out its spine. It howled and arched and screamed, tendons snapping. 

Sam resisted the urge to heave. He’d seen dead bodies before, dying ones, even, and they were human, not - what this was. He shouldn’t be this affected. Lucifer smiled and then crushed the column of bone in his hand, the sphinx shuddering and finally, thankfully, dying.

Sam kept himself from screaming, just barely, at the expression on Lucifer’s face. It was euphoric, shining; Sam thought he might drown looking. Covering his mouth, eyes on Lucifer, he backed away slowly, feet light, trying to find a solidity, trying to creep his way back home through the dark.

“No, no,” Lucifer said, still in that same congenial tone. He grabbed Sam by the collar of his shirt and pulled him close, smelling of blood. “Please don’t leave, quite yet. We haven’t hammered out the terms of our arrangement.” His fingers were in Sam’s hair. “I don’t want to have to find you again, even if I could. Don’t be rude, Sam.” 

“What arrangement?” Sam asked, loudly, jerking out of Lucifer’s grasp. His collarbone burned, like he’d gotten injured without realizing it. He scratched at it. “Where am I, anyway? This whole place is  _ bad, _ somehow. Rotten.”

“You went out the wrong way,” Lucifer said, eyeing Sam’s chest. “I tried to stop you but you were feeling a little embarrassed, I think, what with all the crying you’d been doing.”

He couldn’t remember any of it. He had no way of knowing whether or not Lucifer was telling the truth, or part of it, or lying outright. “Crying?” he asked, stalling, scratching his collarbone again. It really did hurt. 

“My tale of woe seemed to move you.”

“Yeah,” Sam said, “I don’t think so.” 

“Something wrong?” Lucifer asked, suddenly.

“No,” Sam said, his hand falling to his side, “and anyway I don’t need your -”

Lucifer once more snatched Sam by his collar and pulled him close, tearing down the left side of his shirt, peering. “Thought so,” he said triumphantly, then put his mouth to Sam’s collarbone. 

Sam _flinched_ and shoved him away. “Don’t,” he said. “Don’t touch me.”

“You’re marked,” Lucifer said calmly. He tapped the hollow of his throat, where his golden tattoo shimmered and gleamed. “It’s gotten into you, too.”

“I don’t care! I don’t care about anything you’re talking about.” Sam remembered the old rules, pulled from the memory of his father drilling them into him over and over again, from the time he could walk. “I didn’t sign a contract. It’s not a full moon. I didn’t pledge devotion or fealty to you and I definitely didn’t declare my love. So there’s nothing you can do to me, under - ” he heard his brother’s voice in his ear, on his third birthday, making him repeat it until it was on the back of his eyelids - “laws of stone and bone and blood.”

“Oh, but, see,” Lucifer said, grinning wickedly, “we were  _ underhill. _ You ate out of the palm of my hand.”

The universe shrank to a single point; the glare on black road, the sharp edge of Lucifer’s smile. “What?” Sam whispered.

“You came willingly underhill, in neutral territory,” Lucifer said, “and I gave you food, and you ate it greedily from my hand.”

There was no way - the door -

The door had led to a cavern. Sam hadn’t even considered it, so subsumed by the glimmering crystal and the proliferation of monsters around him in velvet and silk. He was beyond stupid. There wasn’t even a word for how thoughtless he’d been.

Sam tried to laugh, tried to desperately wrench back the upper hand. If he’d ever had it. “Any chance,” he said, laughing shakily, “you’d like to formally reject me?”

Lucifer tilted his head. “As much as it may surprise you, I would be willing to, yes.”

The universe tilted, once more, but this time it was hope that grabbed Sam by the neck and focused him. He cleared his throat. “Alright. So, uh, you want to -”

“You misunderstand,” Lucifer said. “I would be  _ willing  _ to. I don’t  _ want  _ to, Sam. I want to give you a gift.” He looked Sam in the eye. “I want to give you everything.”

“I don’t want  _ anything _ from you,” Sam snarled. “This isn’t a gift. It’s -”

“Let me elaborate, please. I am willing to formally reject you if you do something for me, first.” His gaze grew hard. “I respect your freedom, Sam, probably more than you could ever know, but I didn’t initiate, and I didn’t coerce you. This isn’t my fault.” He smiled. “I’m only acting in enlightened self-interest.”

“Right,” Sam muttered. A literal deal with the devil. This was everything he’d been cautioned against. A lifetime of care undone, both his and his family’s, because he’d had too much to drink. Dean would...he swallowed. No point. No point dwelling. It was done, so whatever must happen to undo it was right. “Right,” Sam said again, with conviction this time. “What would you want me to do for you?”

“Let me show you something,” Lucifer said. “That’s all. After that I’ll refuse you and you’ll fall back into your life. You’ll never have to see me again, unless you ask nicely.”

Whatever it was Lucifer wanted Sam to look at, he must have thought it was a trump card. It didn’t matter. Nothing could make Sam change his mind. Even if this was someone he loved, he’d never want to be chained.

“I’ll look at whatever you want me to look at,” Sam said. “And then I’ll be done, and I’ll go back to my life. Yeah. Fine. Let’s go.”

“You can’t unlearn knowledge,” Lucifer said, his tone caught somewhere between despair and kindness. “Hold tight, Sam.” 

The world went white around them, and Sam shut his eyes against the light.


End file.
